Ben Kinsella murder trial told of youth's knife threat

The teenage brother of EastEnders actor Brooke Kinsella was stabbed to death because his "posturing" young killer wanted to protect his reputation, a court heard yesterday.

Ben Kinsella, 16, died last summer after being stabbed 11 times while leaving a club where a row had broken out between other youths.

He was attacked because one of his alleged killers, Jade Braithwaite, 20 - who had earlier bragged he would "stab people up" with the weapon concealed in his waistband - had felt slighted after a dispute with one of Ben's friends, the Old Bailey was told.

Nicholas Hilliard QC, prosecuting, told the jury Braithwaite had been seen gesturing into his trousers and as if he was carrying something and saying: "Tell your boy if he wants trouble, I've got my tool on me and it will open you up." He also engaged in a "large amount of posturing", saying to those around him, "don't you know who I am?".

The altercation could have ended at that point, suggested Hilliard, but "with [Braithwaite's] reputation at stake he didn't leave it there".

After leaving Shillibeers bar in Islington shortly before 2am, Ben's group of teenage friends were chased by the three defendants along the road outside, the jury heard.

Ben was then stabbed 11 times. One wound, to the heart, split the bone on the front of one of his ribs.

Braithwaite and his co-defendants, Juress Kika, 19, and Michael Alleyne, 18, all from north London, deny murder. After their arrests Braithwaite told police he had seen Alleyne stab Ben.

But a secret recording made by police of the defendants talking in a police vehicle demonstrated that they were all in it together, Hilliard told the court.

They were recorded "fixing up a story", the court was told.

In tapes played to the jury, Alleyne - known as "Tigger" or "T" - seems to describe how he took part in the knife attack before reassuring his friends that evidence had been disposed of.

And Braithwaite, who was involved in a dispute with one of Ben's friends shortly before the murder, asks his co-defendants to say he was not with them that night.

Alleyne was later to insist he was at his "yard" asleep at the time, even though his father told police he had gone out.

Hilliard told the jury: "Braithwaite is saying, I wasn't with T, I was somewhere else, T will say he was at his yard and his dad has got it wrong.

"That's what this is all about, this is fixing up a story to get away with murder."

The QC added: "There is no falling out or blaming each other, nothing like that. They are getting their story straight."

Alleyne and Kika were both linked to the murder scene after Ben's blood was found on their clothing.

Brooke Kinsella, 25, who played Kelly Taylor in EastEnders, sat at the side of the court with her younger sister Jade and parents Deborah, 46, and George, 48.

The family watched as CCTV footage was shown to the jury of Ben stumbling from behind a van after being fatally wounded. Although there were no cameras covering the scene of the murder itself, the court saw images of both Braithwaite and his group and Ben and his friends running along the street.

Opening the case, Hilliard said: "His is another name to add to the long list of those killed by knives. No one suggests Ben Kinsella was anything other than totally blameless. This was not a war zone far away. This was Islington in London."

The case continues.

Sign up for the Guardian Today

Our editors' picks for the day's top news and commentary delivered to your inbox each morning.